Two types of landing gear exist for aircraft: fixed landing gear and retractable landing gear. There are benefits and drawbacks to each type of landing gear, wherein the type of landing gear used with each aircraft depends on the design and constraints of the aircraft. Retractable landing gear reduce the drag of the aircraft in flight by allowing the wheels to be tucked away into the fuselage, providing a more aerodynamic profile for the aircraft. However, retractable landing gear systems add more weight to the aircraft and are more complex in design, which provides more opportunity for component failure and requires more maintenance. Fixed landing gear, on the other hand, are lighter in weight and simpler in design, but produce increased drag as the landing gear remains extended away from the fuselage. To combat the increased drag, wheel fairings are often provided for fixed landing gear systems. Each wheel fairing partially surrounds a wheel and provides an aerodynamic surface to reduce drag. The single functionality of such wheel fairings is to reduce the drag.
Therefore it is an object of the present invention to provide an aircraft wheel fairing drag device that increases the functionality of an aircraft wheel fairing and also increases the operating capabilities of an aircraft. A drag pane is crafted having an aerodynamically contoured exterior that corresponds to an aerodynamic profile of the aircraft wheel fairing. The drag pane is operable between a retracted position and a plurality of extended positions via a linear actuator that is mounted within the aircraft wheel fairing by a mounting plate. The linear actuator has a driver and a shaft, wherein the driver linearly extends the shaft, which in turn pivots the drag pane about a rotational axis of a fairing hinge that pivotally connects the drag pane to the aircraft wheel fairing. When in the retracted position, the aerodynamically contoured exterior matches the aerodynamic profile of the aircraft wheel fairing to reduce the drag of the landing gear. Meanwhile, in each of the plurality of extended positions, the drag pane is pivoted away from the aircraft wheel fairing in order to induce a certain amount of drag. The ability to induce drag can be utilized to simulate retractable landing gear for training purposes, increase the rate of descent, land of runways of limited length, etc.